A Girl On Fire
As I sit here in my apartment practicing social distancing for the sake of saving the world of the COVID-19 pandemic, I reflect to a time when my heart burst into a ball of flames as I transformed, shedding the outer layers of my seasonal depression to embrace my ancestral inheritance of the fire coursing through my veins. March 2018 I visited my cousin Tonatiuh in Mexico City, and he and his friend Oliver gifted me with one of the greatest experiences of my life; they invited me to attend the Tultepec Festival Nacional de la Pirotecnia (National Pyrotechnic Festival), and I was forever transformed.
Of course it’s a running joke that Latinxs are “fire-y” or, “muy caliente”. And though these tired tropes are likely to draw eye rolls so intense that I’m all of a sudden in the midst of an exorcism, the fact that I’ve had a life long affinity with the fire element can not go unnoticed. It is also no coincidence that the ancient ruling Aztec people (as well as many smaller tribes), worshiped one of the many sun gods Tonatiuh. Let us not underestimate the worship and recognition of powers that control our yearly harvests. Piss of Tonatiuh, and he could decimate your harvest in one drought.
For me, the connection with light/fire/the sun is not just ancestral, it’s incredibly personal. I moved to New York City 9 years ago from PHOENIX-Fucking-Arizona, and shortly thereafter realized that I am a classic desert rat with a pretty good case of seasonal depression. Every winter I go into a state of miserable hibernation, but have been able to figure out a balance since discovering anti-depressants (all hail meds!), and re-discovering hiking. But muggy New York summers can’t hold a candle (see what I did there), to the beautiful sensation of a hot, arid, Phoenix summer. Imagine opening your car door in the late afternoon to feel the heat roll out of it much like opening a hot oven. The thought alone warms me up.
Of course my personal worship of the sun extends into the worship of fire. Some of my fondest memories while growing up were of watching my father tend to cooking fires he would build in order to cook the pigs he freshly slaughtered in our backyard for his specialties: homemade carnitas and chicharrones. Getting the fire just right, my dad in jeans, undershirt, huaraches, and cinto piteado, would stand over the bronze cazo and stir the simmering carnitas. I would sit mesmerized by the flames licking the sides of the cazo, threatening to overrun the operation, and my dad skillfully taming them to his will. After the food was done and the cazo was taken to be cooled and cleaned, we would sit around the fire and I would listen to the men in my family as they drank beer and told stories of an era that to them seemed long gone, and to me seemed within reach.
As I grew older my fascination for all things fire and light grew. I began identifying as a firebender (Avatar the Last Airbender), and was drawn to sunstones and fire agate stones. So when my cousin Tonatiuh (un-intentionally appropriate) invited me to the pamplonada, which is the second most important part of the 7 day festival, I was all for it.
Tonatiuh introduced me to his friend Oliver who lives in Tultepec and was our personal tour guide to the event. I was instructed to wear old, comfortable clothes, a hat, and a medical mask. And I am so thankful I did just that. As we walked over to where the festival was to be held, both Oliver and Tona gave me the background info on why this festival was the thing for me.
Tultepec is known as Mexico’s fireworks capital as the whole town not only produces the most fireworks in the country, but its pyrotechnic traditions date back centuries. The festival began as a feast in honor of the patron saint of fireworks makers, John of God, and quickly morphed into the 7 day festival known for not only the giant bulls made of steel that are wired with fireworks meant to be blown up that night, but also hundreds of injuries and an entire night of debauchery.
Family run companies work on designs months in advance, and they adorn steel bulls ranging from 4ft (for the kids of course), to 20ft+ gargantuan assemblies of artistry and science. Each bull has its own theme, and is paraded into the town square where it is lit afire and the fireworks work their magic — as the bull charges the spectators much like in Spain’s Running of the Bulls. Writing and re-reading this description does not do it justice, and even the video below doesn’t illustrate how close you can get, or how thrilling it is to be surrounded by hundreds of people as a steel bull charges you full speed and it’s shooting live firework ammunition in every direction.
It’s thrilling! It’s fucking dangerous. Hundreds of people are injured every year. I myself managed to only get a few burns in my clothes, though a firework did almost take one of my eyes out as I Matrixed the hell out of it and it barely skidded across my face. My fellow companions were less lucky and wound up with injuries ranging from pretty good welts, to a really good burn that didn’t require medical attention.
Every opportunity I had (and there wasn’t much time in between bull runs), I took the time to look around to witness and take in this pure celebration of fire, rebirth, and light. Historians may say this festival is about honoring a Catholic Saint, but I think it goes beyond a colonizing entity’s desire for worship. The festival and the run with these bulls forces you to embrace elemental fear, and use fire to re-baptize you again and again. And there is something much more ancestral about that to me.